


The Place of Wonder

by endlesstalesofwonder



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alpha Derek Hale, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Full Shift Werewolves, M/M, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Stiles Stilinski is a chaotic bi, The Hale Pack - Freeform, Witch AU, Witch Stiles Stilinski, Wolf Derek Hale, meet cute, sterek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-04
Updated: 2019-06-04
Packaged: 2020-04-07 14:54:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19087324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/endlesstalesofwonder/pseuds/endlesstalesofwonder
Summary: Stiles thought opening The Place was going to be fun. Easy. And it was.Until he kept falling off of ladders and running into a frowning beautiful mess of a man.A Witch Stiles AU that no one asked for.





	The Place of Wonder

**Author's Note:**

> I'm obsessed/stuck on the idea of witchy-magical-Stiles and if that keeps me writing then I'll run with it until the water runs dry.
> 
> Thank you to josjournal on tumblr (JoMouse here on Ao3) for the motivation and spark to write.  
> Enjoy!
> 
> EDIT:  
> This fic will be continued, yes, but in a different variation under a different name.

 

As the man restocked the shelves, he found himself thinking about the ridiculousness of opening the shop in the first place. It had been left to rot and be broken into by the local homeless people, abandoned by the stores flanking either side as they had taken all the room they had wanted and left the remaining space of a decent walk-in closet. The man, no doubt, had made it work.

With a little magic, of course. (It was bigger on the inside. Sue him.)

It was something of an inside joke-slash-trap. Very little costumers ever realized the shift in dimensional spacing. It was the Others — the Supes, as his best friend had called them once, before becoming one of them — that noticed and called the man out. It made for an easier business transaction. The man would hold nothing back in making the customer whatever they wanted; A potion for remedying hair loss; An ale for faking the stomach flu — it was very popular in the fall season, especially during finals week; Blessed silver chains that helped resist the call of the moon; Chicken bones laced with monkshood to help urges of hunger.

Wednesdays were the most active. It was something in the water or in the air that made the people flock to the business.

Or the fact that he knew a leprechaun that owed him a favor and a focusing charm stuck to the back of his calendar.

The week before the full moon was also the busiest. Wolves ranked as his best customers — including what he deemed as the “cousins”: coyotes, foxes, and hellhounds. Plus the occasional jaguar. Following were the Fae ( _faeries),_ incubi, then vampires.

The man made sure to set all of his clocks — an entire wall’s worth of space, each one designated to a certain species and location — to remind him of the coming time of the month.

Which was today.

The clocks began to go off. A chill ran down his spine as a soft bell was swallowed by the sound of different screeching alarms and whistles. The jars went flying. The man went falling. Everything went to shit in a manner of seconds.

But the man didn’t hit the floor. No jars were shattered. The clocks were still ringing.

The man looked up to find another, his stubbled jaw square and dark eyebrow quirked into an odd judgmental curl. The jars were frozen around them, some of their contents also frozen, spilling from their containers. It only took one too many falls to cast a protection against accidents just like this. Especially if they happen more than three times a day.

“Welcome to The Place. Can I help you?”

Square-Jaw dropped him.

He’d never say that he swore in front of a customer. (But he did.)

The other man’s face was still screwed up as though he was carrying a lemon in his mouth and trying to conceal it. His eyes flicked from him to the wall.

Oh. The screaming. The man stood, albeit was a challenge without help, then slammed his fist into the wall. Like a ripple effect, each clock silenced and left the men in complete silence.

“Can I help you,” he repeated with a little more smile and _I’m-sorry-you-had-to-see-that-Let’s-forget-it-ever-happened._

Square-Jaw crossed his arms, rose the eyebrow even higher suggesting, _I’m-not-forgetting-that-awfully-embarassing-fall-and-damsel-catch-so-long-as-I-have-power-over-you._

Damn, he thought. He busied himself with grabbing the jars left in the air and returning them to their rightful place on their respective shelves. The one clock, with a cartoon cat stretched so its tail became the pendulum, gave him an apologetic smile and shrug.

Thanks. For nothing.

“I need a pair of manacles that could be worn out in public, but still have the restraint and control of a normal set.”

Wolf. The witch turned around, slowly descending from his height on the ladder. The man certainly didn’t look like a new-turn. The wolf under his skin felt old, trained, protective. Born. Alpha.

He hadn’t had an Alpha in the store in a while. He was out of practice in the traditions of deals and trades. To hell with them.

“Male or female?” How was it even possible to hike an eyebrow up higher than it already was condescending him. The witch crossed his arms. “I need to know for the shape of the binding. Bangles look better on women. Cuff bracelets are rather neutral, but I can wrap them in leather strips to personalize them for the wearer.”

Ha. Wearer. Were-r. He thought he was funny.

“Stick with the neutral. I don’t need any backlash for getting the wrong thing for the wrong person.”

The witch shrugged. “Sounds good to me.”

He walked to the main counter in the back of the shop, the wolf close at his heels but not too close. Caging a magician in his own workplace was asking for a curse or misplaced misfortune spell.

The man plucked out a pen from his pocket — he’d enchanted the damn things after losing and buying too many replacements — and his schedule planner appeared, open in front of him. “I can definitely have the pair done before the full moon, possibly in two days — three if you want leather.”

“Why?”

“I buy and prep the material myself. Removing the scents from the leather is best to help with claiming certain objects as theirs, especially within larger packs.”

“No.”

He stopped writing, drawing out an exasperated sigh of _What-do-you-mean-no-Do-you-want-the-damn-things-or-not._

“I can bring you the leather. You won’t have to worry about the scenting, except for your own.”

“I have—” _special gloves for these kinds of things, I’m not an amateur,_ he wanted to say. “Don’t worry about it.”

“And I’ll need four pairs.”

 _Sweet Gods,_ the witch thought. “You’ll be pushing more towards the moon.”

“That won’t be an issue.”

The witch tapped his pen against the table. _Click-ClickClick-Click-Click-ClickClickClick —_ The wolf caught the pen and his hand. The heat from his grip, and overall excessive body temperature, made him want to push his own fire into the touch. His magic, however, wanted to do nothing. Content.

He gulped. “I’ll need a name. For the order. And a number.” For the order.

“Hale. Derek Hale.,” he barked out, followed by a series of numbers that were atrociously arranged but easy to remember. Forever.

“I’ll call when the order is—” The front door rang. The wolf was gone. “—Ready. Way to go, Stiles.”

*

It took two days to shape the iron into the cuffs and another two to bless them. Stiles sat on his ass and watered the plants in the front window, which started whistling at passing people to get them to come in or at least give them attention, waiting for ‘Hale’ to show up with the leather for his own order. He should have denied the request, but who was he to deny the opportunity to spend less money?

He waited the full work day, inching closer to flipping the sign and getting the hell out of there, when the door chimed. A beautiful woman, almost equally beautiful as Square-Jaw-Hale, stood there with a cardboard Vans box. Everything about her screamed wolf, from her glinting smile to the wicked gleam in her eye. Her wolf did nothing to conceal itself. It pranced around wanting to be noticed, even flashing its eyes at the witch.

“Can I help you?”

She scanned him, all too obviously and stalling in all the wrong-right-places. Particularly, his face. His eyes. “These are for you.”

Stiles took the box from her, expecting a bomb or at the very least an enchanted can-of-worms trick. Instead, there were worn strips of leather in various sizes and lengths. The collective energy of the pieces made him think of a large home, adored, an even larger family, connected. Hale did well.

“Thanks.”

“I should be thanking you…” She leaned forward, squinting at the small badge on his shirt. “Stiles.”

Stiles quirked his eyebrow. Hale was getting to him and he’d only been there for a few minutes.

“Laura,” the woman offered in return, along with a hand. “Hale.”

“Ah. Makes sense.” The wolf did feel familiar, similar in some ways and different in others. She was an Alpha as well, but looser yet firm. There was a hidden strength to her that she wanted to keep that way. “Tell him thanks. Again.”

The woman turned on her heel, giving a half-assed salute on her way out.

Even the plants turned to watch her as she left. The Valley Lilies looked as confused as Stiles did. He flipped the sign on the door to _Closed_ and buried himself in the back room to finish the damn order for the damn Derek Hale.

*

The clocks on the wall liked to taunt him. Some of them liked to rearrange their numbers and make Stiles freak out over missing his lunch break or not closing on time. Others tried bending their numbers to spell out certain messages that customers should _not_ be able to read in public establishments. There was a collectible clock that his grandfather had given to him as a kid with a pair of parrots in the center sitting on a branch. They softly sang every hour and half-hour. They screeched when Stiles needed to clean their glass so they could see the customers better. He was cleaning said glass when they started to sing — nay, _scream for their lives —_ sending Stiles, once again, to the mercy of the floor — And into the hands of another man.

Stiles looked up — “We have to stop meeting like this.”

The man dropped him. Again. This time, there was a little push just to make it hurt more. Not that he’d ever win that argument with the wolf.

Stiles got himself to his elbows, already winded. “I told you to come by tomorrow.”

“I was in the neighborhood.”

The clock chimed overhead: _cuckoo, cuckoo._ “Liar.” He didn’t need the clock to know that.

Derek stared at the wall as though they had personally offended him. Which, they had. Very personally. He crossed his arms over his chest — How many times can a man do that before popping or ripping something?

He cleared his throat. “Just give me the damn bracelets.”

Stiles jumped to his feet in one swoop. “Why, Derek, we haven’t discussed the matter of payment.”

“Money isn’t an issue.”

 “Establishments like this,” he gestured to the room for dramatic effect, but the wolf simply growled, “don’t normally take money.”

“So, what do you want? Blood? My first born?”

“Geez, what kind of witches do you deal with?” The young witch huffed, leading the man to the back counter once again. He reached beneath the tabletop and retrieved the same Vans box that had been delivered to him, opening and showcasing the items like prized jewels.

Derek nodded. “Then what do you want?”

It seemed like anything was on the table with the man, short of murder and dressing up in the cotton-tail-bunny costume from _A Christmas Story._ “Well, I’ll give you a choice. You can either pay me in 10 happy memories—” The man took a sharp inhale. “—Or you can go on a date with me.”

“Excuse me?”

“A date.” Stiles didn’t want to be the one to assume, but the man must have had one or at the very least heard of the word before. “Two people. Possibly a movie and some snacks, or if dinner is more your style, we could share a plate of spaghetti—”

“Does it have to be 10?”

“Hey.” Stiles frowned. “Is a date so bad?”

Finally, his eyebrows lowered in a _not-quite-menacing-but-I’m-trying-to-prove-a-point_ glare. “I’m not good with… people.”

“I’m a hot mess on two left feet.” Stiles pointed to the damn shelving unit that was the cause of the whole ordeal. “People aren’t my strong suit either. I do make a mean steak.”

Derek did this thing with his mouth, curling and pouting in this contemplative _should-I-even-consider-doing-this_ shape, then picked up the box of cuffs. “So long as it’s not spaghetti.”

“Is that a yes?”

“It’s not a no.” His eyes scanned over his face, stopping at his cheeks, nose, then lips. “Tomorrow. Seven.”

Like an ass in a romance film, he turned on his heel and made for the door. Stiles squawked, climbing over the counter instead of simply walking around it. He wasn’t one for clear thinking. Clearly.

“Tomorrow’s the full moon.” _Don’t you need to be with your pack_ came out as, “Will you need those cuffs?”

The wolf stopped short of the door, hand posed on the glass. “Don’t worry.” The man turned over his shoulder, eyes burning red and grinning feral but very, _very_ much in control. Stiles lost his breath. “I’ve got plenty of control.”

The clocks stopped ticking. The plants stood at tip-top shape. One of the jaws of the channeling dolls dropped wide open.

The wolf smirked. “See you tomorrow, Stiles.”

The store was still when the man left, the door shuddering in his wake. Nothing wanted to move first before Stiles could put himself back together in a decently functioning being. He pounded his fist in the center of his chest, muttered a prayer, and made sure to touch and brush past every talisman of good luck on his way to the back room. He’d need it.

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me over on tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/endlesstalesofwonder


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